


capacitance.

by asongtosaygoodbye



Series: FLICKERBEAT. [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Boundaries, F/M, Fisting, Gen, Implied/Referenced Blow Jobs, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Mentions of Underage Abuse, Multi, One Night Stands, Other, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unethical Experimentation, Urban Fantasy, brief reference to a rape fantasy, caleb x going to actual therapy, fuck buddies to friends to lovers, highly unethical use of modify memory, mentions of modern warfare and refugee resettlement, non-graphic mentions of abuse of a minor, non-graphic mentions of drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 10:17:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21097835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asongtosaygoodbye/pseuds/asongtosaygoodbye
Summary: It had taken weeks for Molly to beg him up off of the floor.The pattern that they had was this:Passing moments, holed up in the room. A series of displaced bodies—Molly shedding clothes like a skin, patterned silk and patched denim unfolding in his hands, slipping smooth between his fingers. Caleb a warmblooded ghost stillborn in the water, dressed and standing, watching him move. His head resting against the inside of the tiefling's knee in the dark, catching his breath after making him come—still on his knees, refusing to be touched.And for him, that was all fine. That was enough.A piece in which things go well until they don't, rifts are made, a conversation is had. Please please be careful with yourselves and mindful of the tags—this one is soft eventually, but there are some heavy things to unpack on the way.—FLICKERBEATis a series of grungy, glittery, slice-of-life vignettes of recovery, club scenes, party drugs, and parole. Favors and mistakes, sweet nothings and ghost stories, urban fantasy.





	capacitance.

It had taken weeks for Molly to beg him up off of the floor.

The pattern that they had was this: 

Passing moments, holed up in the room. A series of displaced bodies—Molly shedding clothes like a skin, patterned silk and patched denim unfolding in his hands, slipping smooth between his fingers. Caleb a warmblooded ghost stillborn in the water, dressed and standing, watching him move.  
Molly with his chin tilted down, watching the way Caleb worked him over with his mouth. Equal parts reverent, arrogant, slow. The way he scissored long fingers, knobby knuckles inside of him, the nights they traded blue smoke between them, the edge of the room melting, falling away. Getting fucked with one two three _four_ fingers, oil slicked down to the wrist, fisted until his knees were shaking and his legs were numb and he was cussing the most obscene sounds into the mattress, tail wrapped tight around his arm, his elbow, leaking sex across the sheets. 

Caleb’s head resting against the inside of his knee in the dark, catching his breath after making him cum—still on his knees, refusing to be touched.

And for him, that was all fine. That was enough. 

Touch starved as he was, it felt _good_ to be good at those things. Felt good to have the press of Molly's thighs around his ears, long nails threading through his hair, soft praise and flares of Infernal cutting into the heat, into the air. 

He didn’t want to pollute this nice, kind thing that they had with his own shit, so he gladly did as he was allowed, then took the rest home with him. Packed it up into a box, to be inspected later maybe or never, nothing that he needed to trouble the air with here. Anything else he needed could be handled privately, sequestered off by his lonesome, bitten into the heel of his palm until blood beaded, rivuleted down his arm. 

But at the end of the day, Mollymauk was a fundamentally generous person. 

He could be crass and loud and absurd, a vision in the club light— flashing fanged smiles, flippant observations, soaking up all the light and sound and color of a room. A centrifugal force, slipping through the bodies and magnetizing them, corrupted ions drifting in his wake. But teasing, arrogant as he was, he was thoughtful. Attentive, treating _strangers_ even with the same fierce tenderness of a drunk girl holding back a dear friend's hair in the bathroom at the end of a vibrant night—

He looked out for people, in his way.

It was infectious a bit, being around someone so magnetic. So violently, possessively in love with life, passing it around. 

_If you don't mind too terribly, I'd love to return the favor._"

He had offered into the moonlight, words strumming loose and casual in the dark—earnest, unpressured. A common proposal pitched from where he had curled up on the bed, lavender chin propped up on his curled knuckles and red eyes soft with the faintest glow, looking him over. 

The vision of him there caught in Caleb’s throat, and in a moment of weakness his usual no softened into a maybe. 

He kept his hands at his sides rather than reaching up to snare his away and nodded once, allowing him closer. 

A soft kiss melted to the corner of his mouth, the skim of knuckles across the sharp line of his jaw as Molly cozied up behind him at the edge of the bed, arms looping around his waist, chin denting the junction of the clavicle at the top of his shoulder. “Yes or no answer, dear.” He reminded with a lazy little hum, sated and warm, pleasantly slurred. 

Caleb drew in a slow breath, steadied himself, and whispered a single low, hoarse “...Yes.” Into the moonlight, eyes closing on the exhale. 

He could do this, for him. Weeks and weeks he had been asking. Never pressuring, never insisting—just letting him know that he was a person who liked to reciprocate, liked that closeness, it wasn’t any trouble. Wanted to return the favor, feel a little more balanced. 

And for his tenderness, for his care, he could pretend to be normal, just for a night. 

“That’s better.” 

And as soon as Molly’s hand started to trace south down his abdomen to catch at the hem of his jeans, he began to regret it. 

This anxious shimmer of guilt catching in his throat, needling slick between his ribs. 

The fact was, that sometimes Caleb found his kindness to be revolting. Sickly sweet and unearned, something wasted and expensive—pomegranates, plum wine rotting in the sun. Forbidden. Dirty. Undeserved.

A warm, slicked hand slips him free of his boxers, into the cool air. There is a long, lovely pull, deft fingers and casual kisses nosed into his hair but no tightness in his belly. No flood of warmth, just a thin, barren trickle of panic beneath his skin. 

His breathing stills, freezes in his lungs. 

Nearly three minutes pass and he wants to disappear, because there is a disconnect. Some severed wires, a gap between his mind and his body and he _hates_ it.

Molly continues and it should be _wonderful_. Logically he knows this, but he can hardly feel it. 

There is an extent to which the body responds, because it is an animal thing and any organ can be sensitive to continued stimulation, but even as he is here it feels as if he is walking further and further away from his body. 

Face going completely still, privately mortified and furious with himself as this beautiful creature with beautiful hands and a kind voice isn’t enough to catch that spark, no fire in his belly. There is nothing but this cold, disinterested absence locking into his wrists as he remains lukewarm, barely even half-hard as Molly touches him because there is something fundamentally sick and wrong and _useless_ about him.

"Are you alright?"

Someone asked from far away.

The question hung unanswered in the air, every bit of it going to sandpaper in his throat. 

He was vaguely aware of the body retracting. The hands, the heat signature moving away in a soft shimmer of lavender perfume and smoked cloves, residual vodka sours spilled at the club. 

"Got a little quiet on me there." Molly prodded gently, leaning to get a better read on his face. 

It was a big question and he didn't know how to fit words around the things which were wrong about him. 

A hand drifted through his hair and he couldn’t stand it. He flinched away, not from the lover but from himself, from the kindness of that touch falling on his traitor skin.

The body gave him more space, curious, patient. Bated breath then a careful sigh, mattress denting as he leaned his weight at the edge of the bed. "...If you don't let me know what's wrong, then I won't know how to help."

_So many things._

It was momentarily paralyzing. Too many answers crowding in the back of his mind, none of them good or complete or correct.

He didn't know how to say that normal sex had stopped working for him in a slow corrosion. A toxicity that he and Astrid had discovered together, once upon a time. Kind touches like this had been enough, long before, at the start of things when they were still so young and soft and stupid, but the longer they survived the compound, the harder it was to feel anything through their thickened skin. They had matching holes in their memories, matching lengths of time lost in the office until the rules changed, the lengths that it took to stir their dormant blood into a pulse again, to wake back up in their warm bodies after having grown so cold. 

She had been a dancer once, before this. He remembered that about her, the perfectionist, the way she had broken and broken her toes broken and broken her ankles once to learn flight. She had always been the stronger one, the more brutal of mind and they had loved each other because they hadn't needed to ask anything of one another they had just _fit_, her violent hands locked around his throat, his hangman grip bruising her thin hips bloody as they fucked their way out of that cold stone room and into the space where the world went white and sore and simple until they collapsed, a mess of lanky, starving limbs gone pack tactics in the dishwater dawn. 

There had not been a structure to it. No clear labels or clean delineations, just a utility, a mutual need. 

There was the vision of her sitting cross legged on the bed, pillow drawn up to her chest and chin propped as she watched him stripped to the waist and pressed sweating to the cold stone floor, flagellant raised in a shaking hand and dizzy with the knowledge that in the morning, his undershirt would be privately tacky with blood the whole day through. Black eyes watching him from on high, dropping the pillow and nodding his chin up to the edge of the mattress when he was through, splitting her knees around adolescent shoulders. The thrill of the flayed skin respliting when he moved, tiny reminders bleeding through, sticking to the crisp white fabric at the breakfast table, hidden away. He had learned that first from Eodwulf, who did it purely as a penance and not as another way to get some heat between his legs, but Wulf had always been sounder of mind, less perverse. Handsome, strong handed, even when the nights got bad for him too and he would sneak over to join them in the big green bed, needing a known body to break into, pacify himself in the warmth of. A proper triad of maladjusted fuck ups sneaking around in the surveillance reels until they weren’t anymore, until his mind was splintering into baking soda, dissolving and—

“I'd like you to talk to me, Caleb.”

The sound of his new name clicked him back into the quiet, the dark, the cluttered bedroom but he still didn’t know how to tell him any of these things, so he didn’t. 

A car passed in the street below.

“I’m sorry, Mollymauk.” He murmured, the headlights catching amber on the barred windows, the blinds in a brief crimson, falling away. “I...think I have had too much to drink.” He lied into the moonlight, pulse too heavy in his throat, getting up from the bed. 

_Coward._

He redressed himself, dodged questions—

And forced his way out of that space.

Returned to the water damaged dark of his shoebox apartment, quarantined himself. 

Stayed there for days, avoiding his texts, avoiding anybody but Nott who clung around his doorway, trying to make sure he remembered to eat, to get some sunlight. Stayed there doing work, taking calls. Translating them. Back and forth, back and forth. Feeding the cat, walking aimlessly around the apartment, pacing and thinking and scritching the creature's fur. Holing up in his room, face and hands going stale in the computer light. Staying up too late, violent porn, cold showers.

Later in the week there had been appointments. Parole, therapy. 

Parole—standing in a cold grey room, plastic chairs, flickering lights. The hum of a vending machine, the corners of his flip phone fidgeting in his hand, packing against the palm, one two three, one two three. Next, your turn, up to the window. Down the hall, piss in a cup, you haven't left the city have you, are you keeping up with outpatient care, paying your court fees, sign here.

Therapy—a very smart woman in a quiet room, heather carpet and substandard plants, waxy in the muted sunlight. Talking low, laughing at the wrong things. Shoulders bent, picking at his skin as he spoke and listened—_you know I have this friend, and I think I may have fucked things up between us._ The bob of her chin nodding, clicking her pen onto the clipboard paper. _Have you asked? Let’s talk about that. I know it can be easy for things to seem that way, but it’s hard to know for sure if you don’t get real confirmation. You’re not a mindreader Caleb, and you don’t have to be. _Talking and winding a length of wire between his fingers, going over the details, appreciating the space she gave him, the listening nods and averted words as he worked through the finer points, the pair of them dissecting the mess of the thing in the daylight, a solvable problem. 

Finally flipping open the voicemail on the corner of Birch and Abernathy, pulling up that six day old recording, tucking it against his ear.

`VOICE MESSAGE  
SUNDAY, 3:54 AM.`

`“Hey. I'm not angry, y’know.”`

Caleb could hear the smudge of the receiver muffling against skin, clinking against jewelry.

“Some people aren't interested in touch, and that's fine. That's normal if that's who you are. But. I don't know.”

The was the click of a lighter then the dim boiling of liquid in the background. An intake sigh, an exhale of breath. 

`“I don’t mean to get into your head. I know it's not any of my business, but. I don't know. I just want you to fuckin' talk to me sometimes, just a bit, so I don’t fuck up and hurt you without meaning to, alright?”`

There was some smear of inarticulate cursing, away from the receiver. A flame clicking, relighting. 

`“Look. I'm not mad. You didn't do anything wrong, and I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, sorry if I did. I feel like we might need to have a talk though, at some point. Just a bit. Clear up some boundaries, that's all. Anyway...take care of yourself, okay? I’m here if you need me.”`

The winter chill cut against his cheekbones, still faintly gaunt, just holding the machine.

Earlier, the doctor had said:

_And what happens, if just for a week, you replace guilt with gratitude?_

He had stared at her a moment, like perhaps she was not so wise as he had thought. 

_I know that sounds absurd, but hear me out. For example, if you can afford to have a hot meal, rather than being guilty for enjoying it, be grateful for not going hungry. If an interaction goes poorly with a friend, try replacing “I’m sorry for fucking up” with “Thank you for taking the time to understand, thank you for being patient with me”. Just as a thought experiment. You can think of it as research if you'd like. Homework. Keep a log of how it impacts your relationships--not just with your friends, your roommate, but with yourself. That will give you some extra structure to stick to, then you'll have data to present next time I see you back._

There was an unread text as well, notification still bold at the top of the screen.

He clicked through to the oldest one he had missed, clicking it open.

`Mollymauk 3:27 AM`  
`you left this by the way. im keepin it safe, lemme know if you want me to bring it by  
[image]`

A picture of his missing scarf, this grey and blue affair he had dug out of a second hand charity bin nearly a year ago, folded neatly over the back of one of Mollymauk’s kitchen chairs.

`5:24 PM  
Thank you for your kindness.  
I am sorry for making things complicated, I promise that it is nothing to do with you. I appreciate your understanding.`

`5:24 PM  
And, thank you for keeping an eye on that. I can come and pick it up from you sometime this week, save you the trouble.`

`Mollymauk 5:31 PM`  
`you don’t have to thank me for basic fucking decency, caleb.`  
`it’s pretty simple`  
`im not a social worker`

`5:31 PM  
I’m sorry.`

`Mollymauk 5:32 PM`  
`don’t be`  
`nothing to apologize for`

`Mollymauk 5:32 PM`  
`you can buy me a drink on thursday though, if you really feel bad about it`  
`i certainly wont say no to free liquor`

`5:33 PM  
I would be concerned a bit, if you did.`

`Mollymauk 5:33 PM`  
`a fucking imposter`

`Mollymauk 5:34 PM  
that way i can bring you your scarf too`

`Mollymauk 5:34 PM`  
`i washed it btw`  
`don’t be mad`

`5:35 PM  
Thank you, Mollymauk.`

`5:38 PM  
Are you free tonight?`

――

Of course later there had been a conversation.

Sitting together on the bed, a pleasant high still drifting in the air and some or another bad late night sitcom running low mute on the TV. 

“That’s fair.” Molly drummed his nails on his own knee, looking for the best place to start. “Then how about I just ask questions then, and you can answer. Sound good?”

Caleb nodded once, elbows resting on his knees. Face and hands glowing a pale cerulean in the faint moonlight pallor, everything else flattened into shadow.

“_...Ja_, okay.” 

“Excellent.” And Molly collected his next words, leaning back a little on the bed, palms spreading out behind him. “Alright, _so_. For starters, bit of a ground rule here—you like me, right?"

He posed the question into the silence, stirring it like a lure, a thing tossed into a pond. Listened, waiting for it to catch. 

"...I think that is pretty obvious."

"Well, _that_'s good." Molly hit back, this idiot grin teasing the corners of his mouth. "Means neither of us are making _complete_ fools of ourselves at least." 

To be fair, he was always ready to make a complete fool of himself, but. It was nice when he didn’t have to. 

"That was not a very good question.”

Molly rolled his eyes. It was a dig, but there was a specter of affection in his voice, playing around the edges. "Right, got it.” He swatted the man’s leg with his tail before letting it curl back down on the bed. “Anyway, you like me. That’s good. _But_—” And he paused then, getting his attention. “How d’you feel about...well. All of _this_?” And he swept a vague gesture towards the room, towards the space between them. The implicit baring of his body, their quiet hands. 

A shadow passed. Painted silver on the sheets, the blinds black shapes against the window panes. “It is...good, the things that we do.” Caleb’s tone remained deliberate and even in the quiet, folded in close. “It's not likely that I would be here, otherwise.” 

Molly stewed on that a moment, thumb twirling a ring on his finger. It was technically an answer. A bit open ended, but an answer. 

“...Right.” He nodded once to himself before splaying his hands down across his knees, picking his next words as carefully as he would his cards. Imagined them gold edged in the dim, setting one in front of the other, face up between them. “So, you like me, you...objectively enjoy these hookups we have with one another, but...you don’t want to be touched, is that correct?” 

The air crackled with the question. 

“Or...maybe you do, you just don’t want to tell me.”

Caleb scratched at his wrists, the quiet gone sandpaper thin, avoidant in the dark.

“I am not…_opposed_, not necessarily." He parsed back eventually, diplomatic and slow. “You know, the last time...I think I just got a little bit too much in my head. It wasn’t anything wrong with _you_, you are wonderful, I was just. Ah. _Overthinking_.” The word came out sharp. A thin, reflexive barb.

"Is that what we're calling it."

No answer. 

"The last time you were here, we tried something new, you said yes, it went badly, then you ran off and ghosted me for a week. And that happens, that’s _fine_. Really.” Molly laid out as simply as he could. "It's just—"

“I did not ask you to do that.”

A quick defense. Stubborn, irritable. 

Molly sighed, clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I know. That’s why I want us to have a proper chat about it _now_, so that we can have some ground rules in place for next time.” The tiefling explained, propped back, trying to keep his body language casual and easy in the quiet. “If I do something that freaks you out, I want to know. You’ve just got to actually _tell me_ these things though, so I don’t cross a line and hurt you without meaning to.”

“You didn’t.”

“Really? It sure seems like it.”

“I remember you were busy, at the start of that night.” There had been cellophane, a dealer, the chalky crack of tablets between his teeth, swilled down with water. Slipping something bright and happy over his skin, something to widen his smile and dazzle in his sweat and make the black things in the back of his mind turn bright and bright and lovely, _yes._ “So. Many things may not be as they seem.”

A white flash of anger slicked across Molly’s teeth but he caught it, flattened it to the roof of his mouth.

“There's obviously a problem if I can't get my hand in your pants without triggering a fucking panic attack, Caleb.” 

"Then don't."

_For fuck’s sake. _

The night simmered around the impasse, a thick and heavy thing. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a memory formed—

He had gone out drinking with this Zemnian girl once, some kind of exchange student that Beau was fucking for a summer, off and on. It had been hard to tell. She had asked for a quick reading in a moment of drunken lesbian desperation, something to let her know if this was a summer fling or something which was meant to be, then lamented about the supposed obscurity of his answers. 

_“I mean, you could just ask her right? If you’re not sure.”_

He had proposed, slipping the deck back into the inside pocket of his jacket. The woman had just frowned into her cups, cocktail straw bobbing uselessly in the ice. 

_“Why would I do that?”_

_“Oh, I don’t know, maybe to get some answers?”_

She had just laughed, patted his shoulder. _“No, Mollymauk. My people, we take our feelings and we take our emotions and we put them away in a tiny box and then one day we die.”_

_“Oh. That seems productive.”_

_“Ja.”_

_“And what happens when you run out of room?”_

_“We drink.”_ The girl had shrugged, slammed the rest of her beer, and staggered away. 

Right. Of course. 

Back in the quiet of his bedroom, Molly smoothed his fingertips over his eyelids. 

Took a breath and dropped his hands, inked and soft back into his lap. “Look. You’re not on trial or anything, alright?” The tiefling said simply into the dark, melting some of the edge from his voice. “You didn’t do anything wrong, I just want to make sure that we’re on the same page. If you don’t want me to touch you I won’t. You know that, right? Easy. Even if it seems like a good idea at the start, things change, and that’s fine too. Just say no, it won’t offend me.” His tone lowered as he shifted a little closer, honest and open and conspiratorial. “And then, if you _would_ like me to do something, well. You can just let me know."

"I can't." 

That answer came out so low that he almost missed it. 

This soft hush of sound, quick and reflexive. 

Molly turned a bit in his spot, trying to get a better look at his face. "...What was that?"

"I. I _can't._"

Caleb’s hands went autopilot. The knuckles locked, unlocked. 

_Right. Okay._

The black of the room stuck between his teeth and Molly shifted his hands forward to the edge of the mattress, tilting his head forward in the slivered light. 

Exhaled once, wet his lips.

"Why not?"

The dark turned cold again. 

Greenish blue, underwater, a slow, tender dread spreading beneath Mollymauk’s skin.

Caleb didn’t look at him. 

Just averted his eyes back down towards the carpet, his angles closing off, unsure of what to do.

Molly just sat there and held the question open, hands resting loose and uncurled on his own knees, giving him space.

He might not have known many things, but he knew _people_.

He could be a confessional, really, for all the secrets that he held. 

All the things he had been told, in the quiet, in the dark. A head in his lap or on his shoulder, across the room, in the horrible quiet of a parked car. 

He knew the shapes of the terrible things that had been done to such ordinary seeming people. 

Men in ill fitting suits, women with thousand yard stares in the afterparty, chain smoke clinging to their hair. The things that they had wanted to do in return. Unpretty things which they didn’t want to tell their therapists, their lovers, their friends. Things which had ruined a marriage, called off an engagement. 

Blood began to dot the edges of a scab Caleb had been picking at, his gaze still trained out on the floor.

"Caleb..." 

Molly prodded his name gently into the moonlight. Prayer soft, wedding night tender. 

The blue of the felon’s hands shifted, back into shadow, arms barring tighter across his knees. 

"It just." Caleb’s voice came back to him a tight, hoarse thing. "You know, it makes feel a little bit ah. _Guilty_." He laughed around the sharpness of that word, as if that would obscure it from view, scrape it under the rug.

Honestly, he’d expected as much, but had wanted to hear him actually say it. 

“It shouldn’t.”

That got him a harsh, dire scrape of sound, the murky red of his hair flattened to black in the moonlight. 

“I’m serious. You know I never feel bad about enjoying anything, if I can at all help it.” 

Caleb clicked a sound between his teeth, ducked his chin.

"Yeah. I. Ah..." The strained huff of a laugh cracked between his teeth, more of a tic than a smile. A cruel thing flinching at his lips, crinkling around his eyes. "I find it revolting." He confessed into the blackness, palms flat against each other, one boot scuffing the carpet.

_Oh._

"It is...fine, on you." Caleb amended, before he could speak again. "Just, not, um." A sound stuck against his teeth and the words died there, implication stinging in the quiet. 

_It is fine on you, just not on me._

The dark of the room itched around them. 

Molly stewed on his words a moment, checking for a rebuttal that was more logical that empathetic, empirical and true.

“Seems to me that’s one and the same.” He started. "You like taking care of me, I don’t know why it’s unrealistic that I would want to do the same for you."

A tilt of motion as the other man turned his exhale towards the ceiling, all harsh lines, agitated disbelief hushing into the dark. 

“...Because I am not a very good _person_, Mollymauk.” He promised, all his false humor scabbing over into a dry, honest thing.

Headlights flashed, disappeared. 

“Always have been to me.”

The air between them flinched. No one breathed. 

In the dark, Molly could feel the weight of Caleb’s silence like a third person in the room. A sharp animal walking around in a cage and walking around in a cage and walking. 

A thin trickle of blood made in down to the crease of his wrist, down to his hand.

“I mean, I can only speak for what I see. What you get up to away from here is your business, and frankly, I don’t really give a shit about what that is, where you come from.” 

One day at a time, always. 

“The only thing that actually matters is who you are when you step into your shoes in the morning, and I can tell you for a fact that whoever that man is, he’s always been plenty good to me, maybe more than I fair well deserve.”

Molly just sat there and listened as the erratic shape of his breathing started to cool back down, politely averting his attention away as his friend fought down the urge to bolt, to be cruel and mean and shut this down, to crawl up inside of himself and stop talking, stop breathing, stop thinking. 

Caleb turned over his hand, wiped the trickle of iron off on his pants.

"I'm sorry. I. I don't mean to argue with you." Caleb started back after a long stretch of silence, this sandpaper thing sticking his accent thicker between his syllables, one in front of the other. "I hear you. I appreciate what you are doing, I appreciate _you_, but—" And he stopped there, jaw working, eyes averted straight ahead towards a far point on the carpet. “Some things. Some things, they are...they are not _well_ with me, Mollymauk.” His voice dropped low, venomous and insistent, trying to make him understand. “They are wrong. Just. Wrong. I’m wrong.” His hands scraped down to his elbows, rough palms kneading against them through his jacket. 

A car passed down in the street. A slow crackle of red and amber glowing across the window, dispersed between the blinds. 

“I don’t mean to lie to you, or to keep you in the dark.” Caleb spoke again into the shadowed room. “It was not my intention for things to go poorly the last time. And, I know in my head that things should be one way, I _know that_, but then they. They get _complicated_, and...I don't know what to do about them. So. I don't."

When he spoke, he sounded like a person who hadn’t said a word for a very long time, or perhaps one word, over and over, until it just became the air. Maybe he was still saying it. Maybe it still simmered in the back of his throat, coiled as tight as the sea in the elbow of a conch shell. 

"Hey, that's alright."

And the tiefling took a breath, trying to focus on making his touch move like the moonlight, move like water. He chanced a warm hand up towards Caleb’s shoulder, holding it just close enough that he’d be able to feel the heat of its presence start to prickle at the nape of his neck before actually setting down the touch. 

There was a faint, reflexive twitch of Caleb’s scapula away from the contact, but Molly watched as he breathed out, didn’t move away. 

He took that as a maybe and traced his hand carefully in the center of his back, adding a soft, grounding pressure into the heel of his palm. 

"Really. You don't have to know. Not right now."

Caleb stayed there with the touch and Molly slipped the faint red glow of his eyes shut, feeling the heart beating hard beneath his fingers.

“I. I want this to work, Molly. I really do.”

The nickname hushed into the air like an offering. This allowance of intimacy, ringing out into the quiet like a last coin tossed into a well, a poor man’s prayer.

“I know.” 

In his experience, everyone dealt with things differently. 

Sometimes there was laughter, sometimes there were tears. Recently in his life there had been Noor, recovering from a horrible boyfriend, looking for somewhere safe to sandbox. Meredith, mid-transition and lonely, looking for validation. Ethan on the phone line, who had wanted to die. 

It wasn’t his job to fix or judge or push them. Just curate that space, listen, occasionally instruct.

Find a loophole in their circumstances, offer another way back into their lives, their bodies outside of the usual parameters. Exposure therapy, alternative methods, a toolkit the best he could. 

The rest of that, that was something for them to sort out with their therapists, with their gods, but he enjoyed doing his part where he could. 

Karmic debt, all that bullshit. 

Re-inflicting himself into the world with a kinder circumstance, unlacing some of the violences another face had skinned into this life, the brutal things it had left behind. 

“Hm. D'you think…would it be easier not to overthink so much if it felt like you had earned it?” The tiefling asked evenly, tilting his head a bit to the side, a soft jingling of charms clattering against his horns. “Honestly, I don’t think you need to do anything extra to deserve a good turn, but that’s certainly something that we can work with if you think it’d help.” He proposed, curious and optimistic. “Trick your brain.”

For a while there was nothing. Just the feeling of that warm body starting to breathe again, smooth itself over. Head ducked a little, pulse cooling back down slow. 

“...Maybe.” Caleb nodded, this quiet, single admission. “_Ja_. Maybe." His thumb circled his wrist and he closed his eyes. Took one long, slow breath, his sharp profile exhaling into the dark, muted in the black."...That could be good.”

The blue of the room filled up to the ceiling, their bodies two tiny flickers of heat in a world gone underwater. 

“Good.” And Molly smiled, shifted to set the point of his chin at the top of Caleb's shoulder. “See, that’s progress. Not so bad is it, chatting things out?”

That got him a grim, noncommittal gesture. The so-so wave of his hand, before he continued picking at his skin. A little absent, distant. Blunt nails disappearing beyond the hem of his sleeve.

If Molly were someone else he might scold him for it, but. That seemed unproductive.

From where he sat, it didn't seem like a particularly malicious habit. More of a tic maybe. A subconscious fidgeting, nervous energy. 

Perhaps something could be done about that. Maybe he could find him a short length of cord, bit of braided leather or twine to pick at. Maybe a magnetic clasp, something he could wear around his wrist and click apart, wind through his fingers. Fidget with as a substitute. 

He'd ask Orna. She was good at making things, might have an idea. 

"You know my mother, she would be happy." 

Caleb mused into the quiet, the moonlight slipping murky white across his knuckles.

"My father, he was always so bad at that, at the talking. She would yell at him for it, then turn and do the same thing, months at a time. They would never talk about the bad things, just do laundry at each other in protest." He smiled then, fond and a little sad. "Fold the socks the wrong way, forget to get her favorite biscuits from the market. Always the other one instead, the off brand on the shelf until they were happy with each other again. That was how you knew if they were good with one another, the color of the tin. Yellow or red." 

His homeland stuck to some of those words. _Mutter. Vater._ The excess vowels blurring the edges of his articles, shapeshifting their way from the bottom of his throat to the front of his mouth, not looking at him. Never looking at him, not really. Speaking more to the room than to his face, every conversation an act of eavesdropping. 

Caleb rolled his palm over his kneecap, wiping off the memory.

“You are too kind to me, Mollymauk.”

He wasn’t, he really wasn’t. It was just basic respect, honestly. 

The tiefling shifted his elbows forward on his knees, sitting at the edge of the bed. The television light caught on his rings, his hands, silvering the edges. Infomercials, conspiracy theorists. Late night evangelists, staring ahead at the camera, muted mouth flapping trying to speak a holy word into someone else’s coke binge. It was the time now, for that. Deep into the night, adderall shakes graveyard shifts. Girls teetering on their heels, every step ringing sore in their ankles. 

Kindness was not necessarily a word he would prescribe to himself. 

He could be decent, yes. He could give a shit, yes, but. 

There was this little thrash there, always. This tiny flicker, an indulgent urge towards cruelty that snapped and threated beneath his tongue, but. Every time that he chose to bury that, it felt like holding a dead man’s face below the water. 

It was all performative, a learned behavior. Something he trained this new body to do in protest of where it had been.

"Y'know, you keep saying that. Like I'm doing you a favor or something, but I'm not." That was true. He said it simply into the air between them, direct and sure. “For one, well. A favor implies hardship on my part, like it’s a chore I’m putting forth out of the kindness of my heart, and it’s not. You _know_ that, because if it _were_ work to me at all, I’d be billing you for my time, and I think it's fair to say my rate isn’t something which you can presently afford.” 

Caleb didn’t deny that either. Kept picking at his arm, but with less spaced out urgency now, more present in the room.

"I'm here because I _like_ you, Caleb. If I didn't, then you wouldn't be here. You're not forcing me to spend time with you, so. Don't feel bad about the shit I choose to do of my own accord. Are we clear on that?" 

The picking de-escalated into a simple, repetitive smoothing of his fingertips over the inside of his wrist. Drug his hands back up the arms of his jacket to his elbows and held them there.

Mollymauk dropped his chin back to the top of the tired man’s shoulder. Prodded him once in the ribs, muffled through his clothes.

_Talk to me._

He felt a long sigh rise and fall through his companion’s body. Heard the scape of his palm across his face, but Caleb nodded once. Made a loose fist, cut through the quick, efficient language of a knock, thumb facing out. _Yes._ Flicked his index finger up from his thumb, raised it to eye level, snapped the turn of the wrist and dropped his hand back down to his knee. _I understand_. 

A warm little mote of recognition brightened in Molly’s chest and he nosed a soft kiss into his hair, just above the temple. “Better, thank you.” 

That was a new fun thing they had been doing, just for fun. Caleb had seen he and Yasha signing across the room and asked about it, a linguist at heart. Mildly fascinated by the speed at which their hands moved, these clever, deliberate motions. Molly didn’t need it so much anymore, but it had been fun to occasionally teach him words as they came up, to watch him repeat them and commit them to memory. This private, quiet thing. 

“Not to mention,” And then Molly let him alone, pushing back into his own space, arms spread out behind him. “I’m a horrible showoff, and you haven’t given me a _single_ chance to prove it yet.” He teased, all friendly, irreverent candor, grin splitting around his teeth.

That got him a dim, bemused smile. 

“You are a menace, is what you are.”

“So I've been told.” 

And then he had stood from the bed, stretching his arms above his head. 

“I’m gonna go get some water. You want some?”

―――

Another hour, deeper into the night. 

The cool dark was washing the whole room an impossible blue, ebbing like a tide, Molly's warm body curled up, hunkered down against his chest. Running hot, all infernal pulse, dreamboat, cheshire slow. Empty glasses on the side table.

_“It is getting late."_

An observation he had made, sitting on the edge of the bed, cool glass held between his hands.

_“...I s’pose that means you’ll be leaving soon, then.”_

A heavy sigh, Molly lying on his back, picking a piece of lint from a pillow. 

_“I was thinking that I might stay tonight, actually.”_

He had said this softly, twisting the words like thin cellophane between his fingers. A thin offering unwrapped into the air. 

_ "...Really?"_

_“If that were amenable to you.”_

“_If that were_ amenable—_of course that’s fucking_ amenable _to me, yes. Obviously you can stay. Here, lemme make some space…_”

So now they were here. Piled up into Molly’s mess of a bed, all scattered pillows and colorful blankets, a nude tiefling stretched out along the line of his own body, stripped down to his shorts. 

From above, the image was simple. A blue moment, an undeveloped photograph. All shades of grey and black and blue, the faint amber glow of rain soaked streetlight, dappling at the window. The inked span of Molly’s back laid bare to the ceiling, almost completely obscuring the body beneath him. One knee higher, sprawled out and clingy, hands disappearing below the shared pillow. Tail wrapped lazily around one pale, boney ankle, sticking out from the bottom of the sheet. 

Caleb traced the curve of one of Molly's horns, dampened streetlight catching the edge of a thin gold chain. Charms and baubles pierced through the ridges of keratin and bone, hanging from his ears.

“Do you need these out?” He asked, quiet and curious, tapping the sun and moon trinket that dangled from the silvered tip of his horn. 

"...Mm?"

He felt the low murmur of Molly’s voice vibrate against his ribs, the settled up creature not quite willing to raise up his chin.

"These things here. They will get caught in your hair, _ja_? When you sleep."

"Oh. Prob'ly." The tiefling shrugged, another chain jingling faintly, the point of his chin resting on his sternum. Eyes still closed, face warming against his heartbeat. 

"Where would you like them?"

"Wherever, honestly." 

Caleb hunted along the taper of his ear in the dark to find an earring back, crease forming in his brow. "That is not very helpful, you know." He prodded back, slipping loose a fastener. "But. I will put them here, for now."And he set the silver chain on the side table, stretched it out into a thin line beside their glasses of water.

"I'm always helpful. Fucking delightful, really." 

"Mhm. You are _trouble_ maybe, always." 

"But good trouble."

"Good trouble." The spellweaver echoed, low and musing, allowing it. "You are like a spider, is what you are." 

"I'm sure I don't have _nearly_ enough limbs for that, dear." Molly lifted his head enough to look him in the eye before dropping it back down. "They have like...ten, and no tails. Unless you count the webs."

"Eight, and no. That definitely does not count."

"It could. They both come out around the ass region, can be used to grab things, hang onto things…"

"_Nein_, no. That is incorrect."

A moment passed. Mollymauk shifted, but didn't speak.

"By definition, a tail is _attached,_ ja? The spider only has the web strand sometimes, when it is spinning. You have the tail always. Besides, the spider silk, it is governed by adhesive and gravity, it is not prehensile on its own like—"

And Molly leaned up to kiss him, soft and sweet and grinning, cutting him off.

_Oh._ Right.

They did that, now.

"I'm just fucking with you." 

There was a sigh of gentle irritation but the kiss was returned to him, chaste and soft.

"See. Trouble. I told you." 

Molly didn't deny it. Just hunkered back down and shut his eyes, curling tighter into that space. 

Caleb could map him out only by the pressure of his body heat, blinded in the dark. Felt the familiar curve of his cheekbone denting the rise and fall of his chest, the bottom of his ribcage fitting against his abdomen.

It was a little bit silly to him really, for a person to find so much comfort in simple closeness. It was odd to him, but not a difficult thing for him to give.

Like a cat, he was. Sunning himself in the warmth of another body in his bed. 

There was something strangely close to a purr starting in the back of the tiefling’s throat, boneless and content as he carded his fingertips through his curls, occasional touches as he hunted out baubles and trinkets, tangling them free.

That was good to know.

“...Y’know, I do have two more questions.”

Of course he did. Curious thing. 

Caleb cut a slow exhale between his teeth, picking at a particularly obnoxious piece of silver. 

He was tired of talking. Tired of his voice, tired of himself. Tired of thinking and translating and setting out his words in a way that was present and honest and appropriate, but. Here they were. 

“I know we’ve talked about things going wrong, but." Do you have any particular preferences I should know about? About sex, that is. Not just in general.”

That was the question, wasn't it? A can of worms, really. 

Mess of a thing. 

“You know, I was...away, for a long time.” His voice was low, diplomatic. Sandpapered in the dark."So. I am not so sure anymore, what is good." 

That was true, and it wasn't.

Enough for now. 

"That's fair." The blue night stuck closer to their skin and Molly nodded, drumming his nails in a quiet rhythm against his shoulder. "How about...hm. Let's see." Considering, mulling it over. "Have you ever been in a serious relationship before?"

The question itched against his skin.

This slow, curdling thing twisting in his gut, a thick black eel curling in on itself.

"...One." 

"Mm." And Molly brought his head back down to rest on his left shoulder, mindful of the horns, single free hand curled loosely over his heart. "And did you feel the same way then, about the touching? Like it was something for other people." 

"...No. Not always. Not then." His mouth went dry and he focused more closely on the work of his hands, unclasping a tinseled band. "But oh, you know...that was a long time ago. It was difficult. Complicated.”

“Most of them are.”

“Yes, well. We were young. Too young, maybe.” 

He could see them there, in his mind. 

Corpse colored in the blue, fishbelly white, slipping through this perpetual adolescent twilight. The soft of Astrid's body starved as thin as the boys, compacted into muscle, long and lithe and fast, coyote-mouthed. Eodwulf, tall and strong, respectable face from a respectable family, an honest day’s labor still rough in the cradle of his palms. 

“It was...it did not end well. We ah. Hurt each other, a lot."

"Tell me about that."

The edges of his voice curled up into the back of his mind. Honey warm and soft, the quiet command pressing like two fingers at the base of his skull. A gentle pressure, like the melting of a headache. 

Caleb just set his chin down onto the crown of Molly’s head and exhaled the cobwebs in his throat, setting his hands loose across the curve of the tiefling’s spine. Realized that he had been clenching his jaw and released it.

"There had been a girl, and...a boy." This close, he could feel the slight heat of his own breath reflecting against the top of the tiefling's head. That warm body, curled up beneath the cover. _Tell me a story_, he had once said. A story. “The girl and I, we had grown up together. We had. been friends, when we were younger. More than that, later but then we ah. We went away.” 

Plenty of stories started this way. Boys and girls, spiriting away._ Die Kristallkugel. Hänsel und Gretel. Die Zwölf Tanzenden Prinzessinnen_. 

    Springtime at the train station. 

    A low grey sky, orange light and gunmetal—civilians, soldiers crowding the platform. Standing up straight, waving goodbye to mother and father. A pair of country children with second hand clothes, his ankles sticking out beneath the hem of his rarely used church pants, showing the tops of his socks. She had worn the same dress that she had worn to her first recital, years before. Back before the war started and lessons became too expensive. Everything expensive, children expensive. Better then, for them to be selected. Cheers all around, scholarships coming from on high, enough to send money home at the end of each semester. 

    Meeting Eodwulf in the train car, watching him help Astrid stow her luggage. 

    Her hand folding into his when they sat down across the bench seat, a gentle pat to keep him from picking at his sleeve.

"The boy, he was from the same village as us, just from the other side, further away. We had seen him before a few times, but had not actually met until we were due to be tutored together, out in the country." 

    Sneaking glances at Eodwulf in the library—his tanned skin, rougher hands calloused from steelwork. A shock of dark curls, cropped short on the sides, downturned mouth and thick brow furrowed as he read.

    Watching him every so often from his place curled up on the window's bench seat with a tall stack of books, the afternoon light catnap warm across his shoulders. 

      
_“Du hast angestarrt.”_  


    Astrid at the other end, nudging his foot with her own. 

      
_You’ve been staring._  


    She mouthed, dark eyes lighting, a private, knowing grin.

    When the new boy looked up, she waved. He waved back.

"We were both a little bit sweet on him. It was silly, actually, but." Caleb strummed an absent touch over the curve of Molly's horn, into his hair. "The both of us, we were...what do you say...ah._ Overachievers_. Type A. So. We made something of a competition of it. Placed bets, to see who could kiss him first."

    Sunlight and dustmotes.

    Sitting on the edge of one of the dark desks in the library. Clean grey slacks and tucked white shirt, one knee folded over the other, leather tome propped open in his lap, keeping company as Eodwulf poured over stacks of books, loose papers. Energy, matter, intricate circles and delicate equations. 

    Arguing over whether the verbal trigger for a particular catrip slipped up or down in the original Draconic. _No, it's lower, in the back of your throat_ the boy called Bren had said, lifting the other boy's hand to touch the hollow of his own throat. _See? Like this. _And he had repeated the sound, smiling around it, rumbled slow enough for Wulf to feel the way the vibration filled and stretched beneath the skin.

"Did you win?"

"Almost." In the dark, Caleb found the edges of another charm. “I was better then, at that. More like you." His calluses caught on the delicate grooves of the metal, something winged and curved, a moth or a butterfly. "Arrogant. Friendly." A liar, a tease. Sweet, cruel when he wanted to be. Toying with people, sitting close and spinning information from between their lips, dragging it home like a kill. “Young and certain and easy for people to talk to.”

"Bit of a shit?"

"Ha. Yes. A bit of a shit."

“But not enough to win the bet.”

“No. Close, but...it was difficult with us, at first. I think his parents, maybe they had not been so good to him. They had been church people, religious. So. It was difficult. But eventually, yes. The three of us became very close. Equally so.” 

    Her knees on the inside of his elbows, pinning him to the bed. Speaking to Eodwulf in an instructive, conspiratorial tone about the specific way she wanted him to fuck the boy stripped down beneath her, already getting hard as they spoke of him as if he were not in the room, as if he were an object or a toy rather than the other boy they loved, Wulf’s fingertips petting a gentle touch at the back of his knees, running over a tendon there. 

    He didn’t have to talk, didn't have to think and he loved them for it. Didn’t have to look at anybody, didn’t have to decide or piece together or try to make sense of things, his mind turning warm and white and wonderful, arms and hands and fingers going pleasantly numb. 

“But the place that we went, you know it was not such a good time for us, for the most part.”

    The first time that Astrid had failed an exam, she disappeared for a week. 

    Somewhere else in the house, away from the big green bed, away from the velvet and filigree, marble floors and oil painted saints. When she returned, she could not say how many days it had been. It had been strange, having her away, but now she was better. She had been ill, yes? She had been sick. Hadn’t you seen her? She had had a fever, she had told you this. Now she was better. Tired, but better. All was well, in good health.

      
_“Was ist mit dir passiert?”_  


    The next time he had stolen over into her room to fuck her, he had found the pink shimmer of a scar. Silver-white and sliced low across the cradle of her hips, a halfway point between her cunt and her navel. _What happened to you?_ He had touched the scar, careful so careful, tracing the line of it and then back up to her face. What happened to you what happened to you what _happened_. She had looked at him so strangely, head tilting to the side, shifting up to her elbows. “_Das war schon immer so. Erinnerst du dich nicht?” That has always been there, don't you remember?_ No. _Nein_. Never. He had known her for years, had never seen it. _Silly boy._ She grabbed for him, hands on his hands, back down to her hips. “_You must have been too distracted._” Split her knees, tilted up his chin. _Get on with it, yeah? We don’t have all night. _

    The next time that they had a test, he failed it on purpose.

"Sometimes it was, but. Often not." 

    In this story, there was no hero. No journey. No neat rising and falling of events. 

    Just the camera, fading into white. 

    Just the room dissolving like powder into water then waking up days later in the parlor. Waking up to your own sea legs walking down the hall as if you had never left the hall, sunlight and cool carpet and lessons at four o’clock. He had slipped easily back into their routine. Stepped back into line, a little bit foggy, a little bit sore between his legs, a little bit sore when he moved. But he had been in bed, hadn’t he? Had been ill, someone had said. He had been ill. So he was sore, from too much rest. Too much time in bed. Cottonmouth, dizzy spells but he was fine. Light bruising at the crease of his elbow, a reddish pinch fading into brown. An IV drip? He had always had difficult veins. Medicine. He had been ill. 

    Later she had stopped him, folding up his shirt. Starched, white. She had grabbed his wrist, yanked his arm towards her—

      
_What is this? What has happened to you?_  


    And she had skimmed her fingers across a thin ridge of scar tissue that zipped up the length of his forearm, a straight line from the center of his wrist down towards the elbow. 

    "_Don’t you remember_?" He had looked at her strangely. He had fallen down once, as a child, helping his father fix a roof. A ten foot drop then there had been a saw, or had it been a pitchfork? A chain harrow. Some kind of errant equipment. Hadn’t she been there? In the bed of the truck, a friend of his father's, riding into the city to see a proper doctor, a hospital. _Leofric’s boy? Of course he did. Always been clumsy, that one. Head in the clouds, reading all those books._ In the memory, she had been there, hadn’t she? Sitting in the truck with him while he lay there with a towel wrapped around his arm, the corrugated steel warm against his back. Maybe it was the neighbor girl. He couldn’t remember. “_It has been there a long time._"

    _No. Nein. Bren, no._ She had touched his face again, his hand. The scar. 

    Things started changing, then. Slowly at first, in degrees. A salamander slipping down the inside of a glass.

    That was the summer that he started keeping the journal. Recording the days, hiding it beneath his mattress. Date and time and a sequence of events.

In the dark of the room, he was dimly aware of nails tracing the curve of his clavicle. Repetitive, slow. 

    Time passed. 

    Their cheeks hollowed, their eyes darkened.

    The sunlight of the farmland faded from their skin, indoors so often now, their bodies turning transparent with hunger. The beautiful rooms of that beautiful house slurring, spinning dizzy when they walked, heavy green curtains and ancient tapestries, the painted ceilings swirling pink and blue and gold. 

    Every few months they were starved until the softened flesh stung against the bone, lithe wrists washed blue, heavy lidded and slow. Delirious from fasting, in those days, they could _see_ the silvered netting of the Weave, the buzz of atoms dizzy in the air, each of them becoming tuning fork, weathervane to the currents as they fasted, itching in their fingers. An experiment, to sharpen the mind. Concentrate, focus, improve. Shed the traitor skin, the dependance on a body. _Serve your country._ Learn forbidden, powerful things. How to call flame to the crackle of the air, hydrogen and oxygen and heat. Thermodynamics, intentions, hermetic states of matter. How to boil a whimpering man’s brain from across the room, water into steam, a pathetic sobbing thing crawling across the floor, crying and frothing and eyes rolling back in it’s skull. 

    It became difficult to fuck. It felt like sleepwalking, unable to find the seams to slip away into the warmth of another body, their fingertips gone too cold.

"That place, it...it changed us. There was a war. So. We became desensitized to certain things. We...weren't well, in the head. Distant. Cold." There was a war? _There was a war._ “As we got older, there were things that she needed. To feel safe. In control.”

    The heel of her hand, catching him in the mouth. 

      
_“Verhalte.”_  


    They had spoken once, about how the body remembered things that the mind did not. 

    She remembered a lot. 

    Holding him down to the bed, to the floor. Eyes flat and black, covering his mouth, his nose, the cold marble ringing against his skull. 

      
_“Ziehe dich aus.”_  


    “Things escalated. It was difficult there, to feel real. Alive, so. She would ah. Hit me. Hurt me. Have me do ah. Shameful, derogatory things, and I, I...I wanted her to.”

      
_“Schlag dich selbst.”_  


    Strung out, agitated, murderous things. 

    Just two bodies on either side of the room, their labored breath slick against the walls, the marble. Yard games, Simon Says. 

    _Eins. Zwei. Drei._

    She would touch herself to the sight of his skin splitting beneath his hand, at her word. 

      
_Zwölf. Dreizehn. Vierzehn._  


    Each split of his skin venting the soul back into his body, rising like heat to the red of each new wound. The only thing that could flay the cold reptile consciousness back into a warm, animal thing, restarting his heart.

His voice had gone quiet again, lowered back down into a whisper, avoiding his gaze. He could feel it on him, curious and red and observing, listening to him talk. 

“The boy, he was...not like us, so much. He dealt with things differently.”

    He remembered Eodwulf, becoming quieter, more reserved. Remembered watching him beat a woman to death with his bare hands. Her nose broken, her teeth slick with gore, vomiting ichor between her feet. 

    Remembered music. Slow dancing with him in the moonlight, one of the last weekends that the master of the house had left before they were due to graduate. Holding one of his hands, the other at his back, the way that the taller boy couldn’t stop crying. Silent, wordless, just the heat of his face, his neck reflecting in the blue dark, one two three, one two three, Astrid playing the master’s harpsichord in the room beneath their feet.

“It disturbed him, the things we did. He preferred to escape the violence rather than recreate it, in moments of rest. Our minds just worked differently I suppose, in that regard. He was sounder of mind maybe, less perverse. But. Astrid and I, we continued our routine for a while, but then I ah. Fucked things up. Had to go away, so. That was the end of that.” 

It felt wrong, saying her name.

Like it belonged on a different person’s lips, a different place. 

Maybe this was a ghost story then, not a fable. No fairy tale, no compelling endings. Just a room that someone died in.

Caleb freed the last piece of jewelry from Molly’s hair, untangling it between his fingers. Set it on the table then brought his hands back down to the bed, crossed tentatively around the bend of Molly’s spine.

"...Is that something that you're interested in? Someone hurting you.”

Molly's voice was cursory, casual in the dark. Tilted low.

In the dark of the room, the only thing left that he could feel was the blood moving in his body. The rush of it in his ears. Sore in his pulse.

_Yes._

"Because that's alright you know, if you are." Molly pushed up onto an elbow, chin resting on his hand. "I mean, there are ways to run it which are safe and smart, things to do to make sure no one’s using it as a way to really hurt someone or hurt themselves, _but_." The glowing red of his eyes titling in the dark, looking him over. "Plenty of people are into that. You’re certainly not the only one.”

His words hung easily in the air. Points of warmth, starlight in the velvet.

He knew that.

He _knew_ that. But.

There was a difference between knowing something and allowing it. Asking for it.

"A quick Google search will tell you that."

Caleb cut a sharp exhale through his teeth, lifting his gaze towards the ceiling. The motion of the fan in the dark, rattling and rattling.

"I am aware of the internet, Mollymauk." Not that that was any kind of ethical litmus test, online accessibility. And it was a very different thing, clearing something from a browser history and living one's life. Involving other people. "And you know, you can also buy an entire person there, piece by piece, if you look hard enough. So.”

Molly smiled, this pleasant, slightly amused thing, one brow raised. "Would it make you feel better if I told you that was part of the reason I took you home in the first place? Pot and the kettle, all that.” His voice was low and unaffected, circling as easy as a person stirring cream into tea. “And I mean, you _have_ seen me, right? Do I really look like the last person on earth who would judge you for any interesting kinks.”

He had seen him. 

Had seen him and thought that he was dangerous, beautiful, dance sweat shining in the hollow of his throat. Had been attracted to the way he that had inflicted himself around the room, all switchblade confidence and chin carried high, silver fanged and sure.

He had been drawn to him the way that wanderers were always drawn to the things which drowned them, ghostlights in the bog. 

But then of course, he had been tender. It was true that Mollymauk could be cruel and quick and scathing to the right person in the wrong temper, catty and protective of his other freaks, his friends, crass and mean, toying with his food, but. At the end of the day, he was an excruciatingly kind person.

It seemed obscene to ask of him any of these things. To ask anything, really. To take up that space. Bring any of that into this room.

Closed his eyes.

"...I have seen you." He repeated back, a soft parched thing.

"Mm-hm." And a warm hand scuffed a quick touch through his beard, dropped back down onto the pillow. "You're silly sometimes y'know, for being so damn smart."

The words slipped smoothly into the air, hushed against his skin.

That was a word for it. 

"Ja. Maybe a little bit.” Foolish. Presumptive. Making a mess of things. He worried the edge of a healing scab. Picked at it."...I'm sorry." 

Molly hummed, drumming his gilded nails against his shoulder again. Once, twice. "Do me a favor, will you?” Tilted his head, observing. “Take that out of your vocabulary. If you apologize every time you breathe, it stops meaning anything." He scolded lightly, firm but not unkind. "You know plenty of words, I’m sure you can figure up a way around it. Don't let that one be a crutch. If you’re gonna say it, you better really fucking mean it.”

Caleb scratched at his wrist.

That was...a fair point. It was something that he liked about him actually, his honesty. He could be direct, blunt about other people’s bullshit.

"...I can do that." 

"Good man." And Molly patted his face once then settled back down into his spot from earlier, tucking his head beneath his chin. "It's a big world out there, Caleb. You're fucking wierd, but not the weirdest I've met. Honestly, I thought you were gonna tell me you were into fucking dead people or something, for how cagey you’ve been about it. Something _real_ nefarious.” 

That was a little bit comforting, actually.

Caleb strummed a careful touch behind Molly's ear, into his hair.

"I bet you have some very interesting stories."

"Oh, you wouldn't fucking believe, some of the shit I've seen. Some of the shit I've _done_ too, honestly. To other people or for them. I go either way, really. Depends on the person, the day. Though...I suppose _to_ and _for_ can be interchangeable terms, when you think about it." 

It didn’t bother him, that Mollymauk saw other people, whether for business or for pleasure. That was something they had worked out earlier, an early stipulation of his upon the start of their entanglement, and a reason that this worked. Beauregard had grilled him about it once, cornered him in the club to ask questions while Molly chatted with another pretty tiefling girl at the bar. Said that she wouldn’t be able to stand it, but. He told her that she was young, and passionate. That was fine for her, yes, thank you for your concern, not that it is any of your business. It didn’t matter to him what Molly did away from here, with his own life. Wouldn’t mind if he were seeing someone else with relative frequency, perhaps wouldn’t mind if he wanted to bring someone else home either, but. That hadn’t come up. 

"Sometimes you do something _to_ a person for their own good, peace of mind." Molly continued, shifting his arms into a more comfortable position. “Those two, the ones you went to school with. Is that your only other real experience outside of here, or were there more?”

There had been a boy once, in the refugee camp.

Brown eyes, soft mouth, never enough clothes. They had been travelling as part of the same group, a handful of refugees and expatriates smuggling their way west enough to put their papers to use, make their cases at a port of entry. 

The boy was sweet. Young and pretty and mayfly tender, always coming to chat at him around the campfire, bring a handful of rehydrated MREs to share, asking too many questions. Needling him for no reason. He seemed vapid, foolish with his body. Careless with it. 

There were guards. Hired help, brute protection for the caravan. Necessary vultures, assault rifles gleaming across their backs. They were known to take a shine to stragglers, to pretty things, to take what they wanted for their service. There was one that haunted the skinny boy's shadow, circling and circling, as if waiting for him to drop.

At dinner time, he started taking the seat beside that boy around the fire, leaving his body there as a witness. Still didn't talk, didn't look at anyone, barely ate. He was still half feral then. Unused to the outside, the past ten years a long white smear in the back of his brain, any attempts to sort out the delineations of the days like trying to strain milk from vinegar through the boney lattice of your fingers.

One night, he dreamed that a man had brought the barrel of his rifle to the boy's throat. He dreamed of sitting cross legged and watching, just watching. Face impassive, slack, staring openly into the man's back.

In his dream, the man caught fire. 

In the dream, his clothes burned, his skin burned. The big man burned and burned and burned and _screamed_ through liquefying lips, snatching at his shirt, the fabric grafting to his flesh. 

In the morning, his hands were sore. The boy smelled of melted kevlar. He did not know where he was. They kept moving. 

There had been dirt roads, unmarked cars. A three day voucher supplied for this crumbling motel in the mountains from some humanitarian gesture, peeling paint and acidic wallpaper, the glue melting a chemical stink into the uncirculated heat. 

As they traveled, the boy's flirting remained incomprehensible to him. The affection irritated him, agitated him. He didn’t trust it. He didn’t see the sense in it, couldn’t get a read on what it was he wanted, but. There were other things he was more focused on then. Stoic, starving, still relearning how to speak, all of the women in the resettlement office speaking too quickly for him to understand in their impenetrable accents, and he had been _good_ at this, he was supposed to be good at this, so smart and well spoken and sound of mind. But he wasn’t. Not then, not yet.

He ended up fucking that boy in the rickety motel room. 

Snatched a fistful of his hair, held his face to the wall. Bent him over the dilapidated sink, told him not to talk. Quiet, single worded orders. 

Ignored him after, for the rest of the trip. 

There had been other incidents, later. Quick, loveless things. A simple fact of economy, exchange, a faceless slur of heat and utility and noise.

When the state gives you back your life, it is in the shape of a paper bag, a bus ticket, and a world that has gone on and on without you. No money, no skills, no path forward. He was lucky to be given a way out, papers to take to an embassy once he made it to a country far enough to distance himself from his confession, from the things that he had said to earn his freedom. 

This kept him from being immediately turned away at the gate, but nothing further than that. Supposedly no longer hunted but still homeless, ineligible for most half way homes, too neurotic to fill out the proper paperwork. 

There were places to sit during the day. Soup kitchens, grey, industrial rooms, buses to ride and ride and ride almost safe enough to sleep on, nodding off against the window. But in the evening, waiting lists were impenetrable and the nights were long. 

That was fine. He had always been good keeping on, surviving for no reason at all. Simply for the fact of it. The same way that roaches did, rats. 

It was easy enough for him to take advantage of the kindness of strangers. To lie and cheat and steal. Haunt around the edges of tent cities until his paranoia got the better of him and he ran. When hunger curled deep enough against the back of his spine, when the nights got cold enough to kill it was easy enough to be a body, a temporary cock warmer for the promise of a hot meal, somewhere safe enough to rest without dying in his sleep. 

It wasn’t until he met Nott that he started to re-civilize himself. It was good for the both of them, to have a partner in crime. To have someone to look after, to take shifts in sleeping beside, curled up under an overpass, watching for danger. It was easier to be rational when you were rested, not constantly trying to keep both eyes open, bloodshot and exhausted and on guard. 

Caring about someone was a powerful thing. 

They were better for it, the both of them. It was easier to look after yourself when your success was tied to someone else’s, someone that you didn’t want to see fail on your account. They became less despicable together. Less monstrous. 

She had been the one pushing him to go out. To go and meet people, to be a regular fucking person. They were doing better, now that they were here. Now that they had a place to live, now that he had things to do. Work and school and actions, something to spend the whirring of his mind on rather than just shredding itself, gears without traction. 

They had friends now.

There was _this_, whatever this was.

“There...have been others. But. Few and far between. One time things.”

"Well, you've still got me beat then, technically." He shrugged. "I mean, I've had plenty of friends I've fucked around with, off and on, but. Nothing really serious, far as I can reasonably remember."

Caleb nodded, folded his arms properly around his bedmate, adding that information to his file.

"...Is that something you are interested in?"

When Molly breathed, Caleb could feel the rise and fall of it. All the animal organs of the tiefling's abdomen pressing down soft into the harsher cradle of his hips.

And for a moment, just for this, just for this moment, he was grateful for the way his weight had been starting to stabilize again. 

For so long, his body had been wasting into this violent, craggy thing. A slow decay knife-sharp around his hips, his sallow skin blued thin in the spaces between his bones, the ridges hollow beneath his shirt. 

He had been forcing himself to fight around that brutal, stubborn stillness in his hands when it came to food. They had so little money and Nott cooked for them and even if it took him hours to beat back the nausea he would force himself to sit and to stay until it was finished, because he couldn't bear the rudeness of wasting her work. Of throwing out her kindness.

So now there was a sleight measure of softness smoothing some of that harshness back over, and that was better. He wanted that body to be better, for him. A worthier place for him to rest his head. 

"...I'm not sure. Maybe. Maybe not." And he dropped a kiss to the center of his chest, wrapped his tail tighter around his ankle. "Are you?"

"That is a good question." 

"Fair." But, we can play it by ear." 

Make it work.

Fondness ached sweetly in Caleb's fingertips, this warm thing flickering in his chest and he continued to skritch the slow, soothing touches through Molly's hair. Took in a slow breath, pushed it back out.

"You…" He started, faintly hoarse with affection, stirring the smooth blue dark. A slow reverberation of sound into the black. "I do not deserve you." And he mused a thumb over Molly's ear, a reverent trace of the feathered ink along the edge of his face. 

"Well, you're stuck with me for at least the next eight hours, so." Molly murmured back, hunkering down closer, this absolutely darling thing, curled up in the moonlight. "Maybe more, if you keep pettin' on me like that."

"That might not be such a bad thing."


End file.
